Method and system for creating a multifunctional collage useable for client/server communication

ABSTRACT

A method for creating a collage of e-commerce items from one or more electronic data sources has steps for (a) providing a server client that may access indirectly or directly, the one or more data sources, (b) providing an information access and retrieval utility to run on the server client, (c) accessing the one or more data sources via the server client utility, (d) importing to or otherwise sending to the server client specific items from the one or more data sources, and (e) placing the selected items in an integrated utility downloaded to the server client.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present invention is a continuation to co-pending application U.S.Ser. No. 12/255,087, filed Oct. 21, 2008, issued as U.S. Pat. No.9,530,142 on Dec. 27, 2016, which is a continuation in part (CIP) to aU.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/030,724, filed on Feb. 13, 2008,issued as U.S. Pat. No. 8,117,089 on Feb. 14, 2012, which claimspriority to a U.S. provisional patent application Ser. No. 60/889,661,filed on Feb. 13, 2007, all disclosures of which are included herein intheir entirety at least by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention is in the field of e-commerce, more particularly,Web-based presentation of and interaction with an interactive store,including catalog and shopping cart utilities enabled through Webservices.

2. Discussion of the State of the Art

The field of e-commerce, where it relates to online shopping, iscontinually being developed. In general practice, an online storecomprises some Web-based presentation of available merchant products orservices and a transaction-capable mechanism for allowing a user toselect items and pay for those items online using a credit card or billpay service.

The online process relates in concept to a physical shopping environmentwhere a shopping cart is used at a store to contain items selected bythe user for purchase and wherein those selected items will be “checkedout” at the end of the shopping experience.

The inventors are aware of several limitations and problems in the artrelated to the online shopping experience. One of these is that visualrepresentation of items provided typically by a merchant is lacking, anda conventional online shopping cart provides only a list of items thatare placed in the cart. Other problems with current online storeenvironments include a lack of flexibility for visiting multiplestorefronts, while using a single utility for aggregating items forpurchase (a single shopping cart). Still other limitations have beennoted by the inventors, including lack of flexibility for renderingalternate views of items or arranging items into groups or categoriesfor further scrutiny and consideration before purchase.

The inventors are aware of a system for facilitating an online shoppingexperience. The system among other features includes a shopping cartutility for e-commerce that includes a first workspace for retrievingand storing electronic catalog items; a second workspace for receivingspecific ones or combinations of the catalog items; and a device displaymechanism for displaying the items and associated item information inone of a thumbnail, collage, or list view. A user may reorder andreposition items in the collage view, and the first and secondworkspaces are functionally integrated. This system known to theinventors is not at present known to the public.

In the system known to the inventors the workspaces may be crossintegrated between catalog or store front product window and the actualshopping cart window, while retaining full shopping cart functionalitythrough to a pending transaction. Using this system, a user may enrichthe experience by being able to manipulate the area of the shopping cartas a scene or background in which images may be arranged for viewing,mixed and matched resized, replaced with available images of varying SKUattributes, and so on. Other features of this system include standaloneutilization of the shopping cart independent of any one specificmerchant site, and an ability to share the workspace between multipleusers for editing and collaborative buying. Still other functions of thesystem of importance to merchants include cross sell and up sell accessinto the cart and an ability of offering a prefilled shopping cart, orto include suggestive items into a shopping cart based on personalknowledge of the shopper and generalized data about shoppers in general.

Still, it has occurred to the inventors that along with flexibility inutility for shopper and merchant accessibility, flexibility in designand look as well as functional improvements in image rendering and inimage placement and manipulation are needed to further improve thesystem for truly user-friendly applications.

Therefore, what is further needed in the art is a system and method forcreating and implementing a multi-functional image or collage that canitself be used to initiate and complete client/server communicationsincluding transaction processing.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The problem stated above is that more interactivity and features foronline shopping utilities are desirable, but many of the conventionalmeans for facilitating e-commerce, such as virtual shopping carts, arerather fixed in features and limited to list views of shopping cartitems. Further, a shopping cart known to the inventor that has collageview capabilities and functional integration capabilities with merchantcatalogs is still somewhat limited in more granular techniques thatmight be leveraged to make the application more user-friendly and thatcould further integrate a merchant's business model with actualpreferences of online shoppers that use the system. The inventorstherefore considered functional techniques that might be applied to ane-commerce system for online shopping, looking for techniques thatpromote more brand recognition for merchants, more indication of whatproducts to offer shoppers and techniques for making the experience moreaffable and desirable to shoppers.

Every merchant desires a closer relationship to customers but muchexperimentation and investment might be made to find ways of attractingmore business with little or no real improvement in the overall resultover time. In the virtual shopping world, shopping carts are mostlygeneric in look and makeup and do not contain any personalizationattributed to merchants or customers. Therefore, the act of utilizing ashopping cart has been mostly a neutral experience mostly transparent tomerchants and promotes nothing in the way of relationship strengtheningbetween a brand and a customer or any other buying emotion or sense ofloyalty or excitement for the customer or the merchant.

The present inventor realized in an inventive moment that if, duringactive shopping at an e-commerce site using a virtual shopping cartutility, one or more techniques could be provided to increase theintensity of, or at least establish a stronger relationship between acustomer and a merchant, that much opportunity for improved serviceswould result. The inventor therefore developed a unique, interactiveshopping cart that allows consumers much flexibility to expand theshopping experience, while providing merchants with more ways to reachand communicate with consumers. Techniques are provided along withapparatus to establish and to nurture a stronger relationship between amerchant and the merchant's customers through the shopping cart utility.

Accordingly, a method for creating a collage of e-commerce items fromone or more electronic data sources is provided, comprising the steps(a) providing a server client that may access indirectly or directly,the one or more data sources, (b) providing an information access andretrieval utility to run on the server client, (c) accessing the one ormore data sources via the server client utility, (d) importing to orotherwise sending to the server client specific items from the one ormore data sources, and

(e) placing the selected items in an integrated utility downloaded tothe server client.

In one embodiment a portable shopping utility for collecting electronice-commerce items from more than one merchant store or catalog isprovided, comprising a first workspace interface to the merchant storesor catalogs, a second workspace interface integrated by at least a linkto the first workspace interface, one or more user controls provided toone or both workspaces and e-commerce items collected therein, and auser action button for initiating mobility of the shopping facilitybetween separate e-commerce pages or sites.

In yet another embodiment a method for creating a background image forsizing and orientating images placed on the background image to presenta collage of images is provided, comprising the steps (a) providing aninitial background image, (b) processing the background image by addinggeometry to the image, (c) anchoring image sizing and orientationexecutables to specific areas of the geometry, (d) linking theexecutables to image types to process, and (e) dragging images forprocessing over the background image and releasing the images at desiredareas of the geometry of step (b).

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIGURES

FIG. 1 is an architectural view of a data network supporting e-commerceconsumer shopping according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an exemplary interactive design tool interface according to anembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an artist rendition of a shopping cart collage created withthe design tool of FIG. 2.

FIG. 4 is a process flow chart illustrating steps for creating andserving an interactive visual shopping cart according to an embodimentof the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a front view of an image having interactive user controlsaccording to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a process flow chart illustrating steps for creating a visualcontainer for representing two dimensional images as three dimensionalimages with automatic orientation and sizing.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating a single page shopping cartapplication integrated with analytics software.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating merchant branding of a shoppingcart view based on product content.

FIG. 9 illustrates a shopping cart view containing the likeness of auser modeling ensembles.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The inventors provide an interactive shopping cart application includingcollage views containing interactive merchant items and controls formanipulation of those items. Techniques for using the application aretaught, and system and apparatus enabling such described techniques arealso described in enabling detail using the following exemplaryembodiments.

FIG. 1 is an architectural view of a data network 100 supportinge-commerce consumer shopping according to an embodiment of the presentinvention. Data network 100 may be the well-known Internet network.Network 100 is more particularly exemplified by Internet backbone 104.Internet backbone 104 represents all of the lines, equipment, accesspoints, including connected sub-networks that may make up the Internetnetwork as a whole. Therefore there are no geographic limitations to thepractice of the present invention.

An e-commerce service organization 102 is illustrated in this exampleand is adapted to provide consumer-based shopping services over network100 to consumers who may access the service from any network accesspoint using a network-capable appliance. Consumers are not illustratedin this example because this embodiment focuses on merchant capabilitiesand interaction with the system of the invention.

E-commerce service 102 maintains at least on E-shop server 105 connectedto a local area network (LAN) 109 within the physical domain of theenterprise generally illustrated by a dotted periphery. E-shop server105 is adapted to display Web-pages supporting integrated shopping andmerchant catalog pages created by merchants offering products andservices to consumers. Server 105 in one embodiment is directlyaccessible over Internet backbone 104 by both consumers and merchants.

E-shop server is coupled to a server database 107 adapted to store allof the required data including images and text for supporting Webservices in the form of shopping cart and integrated product catalogservices. Server 105 might also serve as a client interface formerchants who may subscribe to the service of the present invention andwho may maintain e-shops hosted by and accessible through server 105.

Part of functionality of the present invention provided for the benefitof subscribing merchants is an ability to create their own interactiveshopping pages including catalogs, product listings, and visual shoppingcart applications, with which consumers may richly interact. To supportthis functionality, a design tool server 106 is provided within servicedomain 102, and is connected to LAN 109 for LAN and on-line access. LAN109 may be assumed to be a sub-network of Internet network 104 andenjoys all of the functionality of the broader network.

Design tool server 106 is adapted to provide a variety of e-commercedesign tools that may be aggregated together and made accessible throughserver 106 as a design studio, enabling merchants and others to log-inand create their own functional shopping cart applications. Server 106is coupled to a design tool database (DTDB) 108 adapted to store all ofthe required tools, markups, and code to enable online design anddeployment of an e-shopping cart application integrated to merchantproduct listings or catalogs. In one embodiment the design servicesavailable through server 106 are kept resident in the server, requiringan online state to be maintained while using the services. In anotherembodiment a studio of aggregated tools may be downloaded from server106 to merchant devices enabling merchants to configure theirapplications off-line and then to upload the finished pages fordeployment on server 105.

In this example, there are two illustrated merchant domains meant torepresent a plurality of such domains. These are a merchant domain 103(1) through to merchant domain 103 (n). Merchant domain 103 (1) includesa LAN-connected merchant server 113 that may serve as an image server,an application server, and an information server. Server 113 is coupledto a data repository 117 that serves as an image database facility(IDB). IDB 117 is adapted to store merchant product images used to buildcatalogs and product offerings. Images may also be served directly fromserver 113 on demand, triggered by certain activity relevant to shoppingcart manipulation in server 105 within service domain 102. This mayoccur during general manipulation of a shopping cart application by aconsumer, or as required by a merchant building a product catalog orpre-filling a shopping cart with product.

Merchant domain 103(1) includes a LAN-connected computerized workstation114, which may be used by an agent representing the merchant to accesse-commerce services from service domain 102. Station 114 may also beused to log-in to server 105 for the purpose of registering the merchantfor services. Station 114 may also be used to access design tool server106 for the purpose of using design tools or downloading a design toolapplication for use in offline work.

Merchant domain 103(n) is equipped similarly to merchant domain 103(1)including a LAN-connected merchant server 116 with an image database(IDB) 117 and a LAN-connected computer station 119. The functionality ofeach of the merchant domains is similar or identical to that describedwith respect to the furnishings of merchant domain 103(1). One withskill in the art will appreciate that equipment and capabilities withrespect to many merchants patronizing the services of the presentinvention may vary significantly from one another. In one embodiment, amerchant may only be equipped with a single network-capable appliancesuch as a computer station with browser capabilities in order topractice the invention.

Referring now back to merchant domain 103(1), a specific design tool 111is illustrated executing on computer station 114. Design tool 111 isadapted as a tool for preparing a background image for displayingoverlaid two dimensional images as 2.5 dimensional or three dimensionalimages. An agent operating computer station 114 may, in one embodiment,access and use design tool 111 from within server 106 in practice. Inanother embodiment, the agent operating station 114 may have a desktopdesign studio application 110 executable on computer 114 from which tool111 may be retrieved and used. The flexibility of this arrangementenables agents representing merchants capabilities of designing theirown applications online using light devices if required, or offlinewhere the infrastructure supports robust offline graphics work.

In this example, an agent operating computer station 114 has created ashopping cart catalog, illustrated as S-Cart Catalog 112. In thisembodiment, catalog 112, after being loaded to server 105, may beaccessed directly from e-shop server 105 in practice by a consumerworking from within a shopping cart application window integrated withthe catalog. Other such integrations between a shopping cart utility anda product catalog, listing, or offering will be described later in thisspecification.

Referring now to merchant domain 103 (n), an image editor application118 is illustrated as executing on computer station 119. Image editorapplication 118 may be accessed from server 106 by an agent as part ofthe design tools available, or may be accessed from a downloaded programsuch as desktop studio 110 illustrated on computer station 114. Imageeditor 118 enables a merchant to take a product image and edit the imagefor such things as transparency presentation of the image, bounding boxparameters, and for applying specific controls to the image for eventualconsumer and/or system manipulation during practice of the invention.Such user-interface controls may include, but are certainly not limitedto center image zoom controls, image resize controls, image view links,image orientation or view controls, image replacement controls, andimage SKU editing and/or search controls. Some of these user-interfacecontrols function to integrate the product image hosting the control toother images such as those residing in one or more product catalogs,listings or offerings.

Using the design tool services and the e-commerce services of thepresent invention typically requires an Internet-enabled computingappliance with command input capability and graphics display. A desktopcomputer or a laptop computer might be used as well as lighter devicessuch as a personal digital assistant (PDA), a G4 cellular telephone, ora smart phone such as a Blackjack™ or a Blackberry™ to design and deploya shopping cart from the perspective of a merchant.

From the perspective of a consumer accessing services, the visualdisplay of a shopping cart may include a collage of product imagesarranged according to preferences of the merchant or preferences of theconsumer, or some of each. The shopping cart utility may be shareableover the network to those having permission to access and edit theapplication. The shopping cart utility may also be functionallyintegrated with one or more merchant catalogs, product listings, oradvertisements. Versions of the utility may be downloaded as instancesof the application through a file transfer protocol (FTP) server, email,or other collaboration mechanisms such as server-controlled online spaceshared by multiple users. There are many possibilities. A uniquetechnique enabled by the provided design services and tools is to enableboth the merchant and the consumer to build utility into a shopping cartapplication to serve the ends of both parties.

FIG. 2 is an illustration of a design tool interface according to anembodiment of the present invention. Design tool interface 200 may loadinto a merchant browser interface as an interactive Web page served by aWeb server such as design tool server 106 of FIG. 1, or it may be calledup from a standalone local program provided as a downloadableinstallation, or one purchased off-the-shelf and installable throughremovable medium such as a Compact Disc Read Only Memory (CD-ROM) or bysome other compatible memory device.

In this example interface 200 is displaying a scene/image transformationtool for preparing a background image for the addition of twodimensional image overlays that will be made to look like 2.5dimensional or three dimensional images. For the purpose of discussion,interface 200 will also be referred to herein as an image transformationtool or simply transformation tool 200.

In a collage view of a shopping cart application, a user may take abackground image or backdrop scene and prepare that image for depthperception properties by adding one or more perspective view planes andby application of sizing scale along the depth of the plane that can beactivated to resize an image that is placed over the backdrop accordingto where along the view plane the image is positioned.

Interface 200 has an interactive import function (one of interactiveoptions 204) for enabling a user to import a background image or “scene”into the application for editing. A background image or backdrop imageis illustrated herein as an image 201. Importing a backdrop may includea function enabling the user to browse an image store or otherrepository for a desired scene. Backdrop 201 will become the backgroundof a shopping cart collage view.

Another of interactive options 204 is provided for initiating processingof the backdrop image to prepare the image for depth perspective andresizing capability. In processing of the backdrop image, a user createspolygons, presumably rectangular, on the image to establish a threedepth perspective. In general, the perspective may be created using fourpolygons representing opposite walls a ceiling and a floor as isillustrated in this example. One with skill in the art will recognizethat other viewing geometries might be considered. Generally speaking,the backdrop may appear in the interface in a preview window 205 thatmay be activated or opened by interacting with a preview image option206. The background image (201) in this case may be cropped andmanipulated with other image editing tasks before it is processed orwhile it is being processed.

Scaling and perspective transforms are applied geometrically to thebackground image and are executable such that when an image is placed onthe background image, it is affected by the transforms according to thecreated polygonal geometry in the background image. The transformsaffect how an image will appear as it is dragged across the geometry ofthe backdrop image.

Import function (204) may also be used to collect product images foroverlay over the background image thus creating a collage view. Thisview will ultimately be what is seen in the shopping cart window of theshopping cart utility. In this example a user, presumably an agent ofthe merchant, is creating a collage view using product images that themerchant wishes prospective customers to see when they click on“shopping cart” or “add to cart” when they are shopping at themerchant's store front. Therefore, one option for the merchant is tooffer a customer a shopping cart utility that has an attractive backdropand tastefully arranged product images that the customer might accept orkeep in the cart for checkout.

A merchant may import any number of images 202(1-n) representingproducts that the merchant wishes to offer for sale to the customer.Images 202 (1-n) may also include decorative images that do notrepresent products but may be used to “spruce up” or to “decorate” thebackdrop. A backdrop image such as image 201 may represent a room suchas a bedroom, a ballroom, a changing room, or some other room that maybe “themed” appropriately according to the types of product images thatwill be added to the scene. Decorative images may include furniture,fixtures, mirrors, flower arrangements, rugs and other props. Backgroundimages may also represent the out-of-doors like a beach background or ariver trail, or some other nature inspired-image. Abstract art scenes orproduct branding designs can also be used as background images. Thereare no limitations to the variations that can be used in terms of imagesor themes.

Interface 200 includes an image drag and drop station 203 in thisembodiment. Drag and drop station 203 may be thought of as a stagingarea that represents visually the imported images 202 (1-n) that may beused to create the collage view. Window 203 is linked to preview window205 by object linking and embedding (OLE), which is the basis for thedrag and drop utility known to the inventors, and generally to allcomputer users. Using drag and drop a user may take an image from thedrag and drop station 203 and position it somewhere over the previewedrepresentation of the collage background using normal computer inputfunctions. Images may be moved from one window to another or they may becopied and pasted from one window to another. An image representing adress and an image representing a pair of trousers are illustrated inwindow 203.

Both of the above-mentioned images have been added to the backgroundscene illustrated in preview window 205. For example, an image of thedress is positioned near the right wall of the room more to the front ofthe room. The geographic placement of that image results in the currentimage size. In this view an image prop (dress stand) is provided as adecorative image that has been engineered to accept installation of thedress image. Further back along the same wall, the same image(replicated) is illustrated on the same dress stand. However, because ofthe scale transform, the additional images are notably smaller becauseappearing further back in the collage or further away from thehorizontal view plane or surface of the scene. In the rear left cornerof the image from the perspective of one viewing the image, two of thesame dress images are illustrated with another prop, a corner dresshangar. In that view, the images are mirrored 180 degrees from thedresses along the right wall and are sized just smaller that the dressesappearing on the dress stands at the back of the right wall of the room.

The trousers are illustrated hanging (several pairs) on the left wallabout halfway along the depth perspective resulting in automatic sizing.The images are also flipped 180 degrees from the original orientation ofthe trouser image for effect. Decorative props, such as a chairillustrated within preview window 205 may be activated to accept dressimages, for example, that may be caused to appear to be draped over thechair if a user drags the image over the chair. As a decorative image,the chair “recognizes” the “dress image” and may utilize imageprocessing utilities from a system standpoint to enable the “dressimage” to be visually “draped over the back of the chair”. In thisexample, no dress images or other product images appear draped over thechair.

Another decorative image that may be a key “support” image is shelvingprovided against the left wall of the image background closer to thefront of the background image. On the shelf are some folded clothes thatmay very well include other merchant items such as even folded pairs ofthe trousers or towels or the like. A rug in the middle floor of theroom also contributes to the warmth of the collage and to smart imagepositioning within the graphics window. Items may be removed from window205 and discarded or placed back into window 203.

Source images 202(1-n) may or may not be preprocessed to work withcertain functions built into the graphics editor. For example, resizingan image or reorienting an image requires no source image preprocessing.Likewise, simple draping or folding of an image may be accomplished withan image slicer invoked by an embedded executable associated with adecorative image like a chair for example. In such a case, anunprocessed source image can be brought near the chair and theexecutable will slice the image so that it may be draped over the backof the chair, for example. However, in one embodiment source images maybe enhanced with more than one view or “look” that may be called up byan executable embedded within the image. For example, a jacket may havea hanging look, a draped look, and a folded look. Each one of theselooks can be a separate image that is invoked dependant on where in thebackground the image is placed. If the jacket is brought near thehangar, the hanging look image appears. If the jacket is brought nearthe table, the folded look appears and so on. Therefore a source productimage may be one that actually links more than one separate image to amobile image placeholder.

Interface 200 includes interactive options 206 which, when invoked, callup other graphics editing tools. An option 206 for adjusting imagetransparency is provided although it may be assumed that source imagesstaged for application to a background image to make a collage alreadyhave transparent border regions by default. An option 206 is providedfor creating a three-dimensional look to a single source image. Thisoption may be executed on any single image to produce athree-dimensional image that can be rotated to illustrate the variousangles of the product. There are three-dimensional programs that existin the art for computing a three-dimensional image from atwo-dimensional image. This feature may apply to any image element, andthe transformation may be automatic depending, for example, on imageplacement by the consumer.

In one embodiment, an interactive option 206 for attaching a center zoombutton to a source image is provided. A zoom control is a control thatis invoked when a user mouses over the control on the image to make itvisible. The user can then manipulate the control such as pressing downon the control to zoom the image gradually or incrementally until thedesired size is achieved. In one embodiment the zoomed version of theimage, if the image is already positioned on the backdrop, may be viewedin a separate window or as a floating representation of the anchoredimage.

Interface 200 includes an exit option (204) for exiting the applicationand an add link option that may be used to add a hyperlink to a sourceimage 202 (1-n) or to the background image 201. For example, a hyperlinkon a dress may be provided to enable the user to navigate to a page thatprovides more information about the dress and shows models wearing thedress, etc. A hyperlink may be used to introduce a cross sell item or toadd accessories to an item. There are many possibilities.

Interface 200 includes interactive options 207 for saving a cart view(shopping cart collage) or for cancelling the current preview image. Ifa collage view is saved, it can be the basis for an interactive shoppingcart that can be edited by a customer. A collage view may be “prefilled”by the merchant and presented to customers. In one embodiment,pre-filling may be done based on information known about a specificcustomer where the merchant may receive suggested product images fromthe system for application to the background image. In some cases, thesystem may even suggest the type of background image that is best for aspecific customer. Such an application might be useful in providing thebest shopping experience for a customer short of walking into theboutique and having an assistant suggest items for purchase.

In one embodiment, a collage view includes a themed backdrop over whichsome division of space exists between the product display area andaccessible merchant catalog or product listings. Such a themed backdropmay be created in the form of an abstract concept or a fantasy view. Inthe case of an abstract concept, a designer sketch book might beillustrated as a backdrop image where the left side separated from theright side by a graphic representation of a spiral binding might be themerchant catalog showing products and product descriptions, and theright side of the image is the shopping cart space. A customer cantherefore browse the merchant side and select items and drag them intothe collage view for positioning or arranging them according to adesired view.

In one embodiment, a fantasy theme might be created as a sort of stylecart window dressing with respect to a background image. For example, a1960's store front design might be incorporated as a two orthree-dimensional scene in which a customer might view cataloged itemsand description in one corner window display and be able to add productsto an adjacent window display which is the actual shopping cart collagespace. The actual division between shopping cart space and productlisting or catalog space may be very vague when looking at the image orwindow as a whole. The boundary might be some decorative image such asan escalator, a dividing curtain, a wrought iron rail, or any otherrepresentation.

In one embodiment, the merchant catalog might be provided as an embeddedprogram that is virtually hidden in the shopping cart window, like, forexample, as a book sitting on a table. When a user clicks on the book, acatalog window containing one or more catalog pages might come into viewso that a user may easily browse the catalog without leaving theshopping cart. Again the customer can add or remove items from theshopping cart and can mix and match or arrange items as previouslydescribed.

It is noted herein that a merchant may elect not to provide pre-filledshopping carts by adding source product images to a collage view(shopping cart). For example, a merchant may simply create one or moreuseable background images that a customer may select from when they opena shopping cart utility. In this case, the customer fills the cart spaceusing the source images provided by the merchant. In some embodiments,the customer may also have some design capabilities and even access toone or more compatible design tools for making changes to a merchantsdesign and perhaps republishing the design. If customers prefer the newwindow dressing authored by the customer, the customer may be rewardedwith a discount of some kind. In this way customers may be motivated tocontribute to the merchants efforts to understand what the customer ingeneral would like to see and interact with in the way of a useableshopping cart utility.

FIG. 3 is an artist's rendition of a shopping cart collage 300 createdwith the design tool of FIG. 2. In this view, a simple boutique room isrecreated with decorative items and source product items. There aredresses 301 arranged on dress stands and individual pairs of shoes 304arranges on wall shelves. A stack of sweaters 302 is arranged on a tableand multiple items 303 are positioned hanging in a back room.

Several decorative images are used in this example, like a picture frameleaning against the right wall in the image. A single shoe is positionedon a table at the front of the boutique. Couches, chairs, tables,ottomans, and other boutique decorations may be provided. In oneembodiment customers are enabled to edit remove or replace decorativeimages in the collage view.

FIG. 4 is a process flow chart illustrating steps 400 for creating andserving an interactive visual shopping cart according to an embodimentof the present invention. At step 401, a merchant logs into a serverthat enables access to the design tools for creating a shopping cartview as described in various embodiments above. At step 402, themerchant makes a decision to create an interactive cart or not. If atstep 402 the merchant did not intend to create a cart, then the processmay move to step 403 where the merchant may have intended to transactsome other piece of business relative to subscribed services.

At step 402, if the merchant intends to create a shopping cart collageview for use in an interactive cart, at step 404 the merchant may beprovided with an option for downloading the required tools in the formof a desktop studio. If at step 404 the merchant decides not to downloadthe studio, then the merchant may be prompted to access a design toolserver analogous to server 106 described with respect to FIG. 1 above.If the merchant declines at step 405, then the process may resolve backto step 403 “Other Business”.

Back at step 404, the merchant has the option of downloading the designtools in the form of a design studio. If the merchant decides todownload the design studio as a desktop application, then at step 406the studio application is downloaded and installed on a computing devicesubsequently used to create a shopping cart collage. The merchant canthen take the process off-line and may design shopping carts using thestudio and merchant source images at step 408. At step 410 the merchantsupplies the product images and descriptions that will be represented inthe shopping cart view. In this step, decorative images may also beprovided and applied to the collage view.

It is important to note herein that the design studio may not containall of the tools to create a complete shopping cart utility. The designstudio focuses on the graphics editing tools required to create thedesired “collage view” used in a shopping cart window at minimum.Several views may be created and used in a shopping cart “templateutility” if desired. However, much of the interactive functionality forcustomer interaction may be created using the design tools described andcatalog integration features may also be enabled by the design tools ofthe present invention.

At step 411, the merchant may save the shopping cart design and mayupload the cart view to the appropriate server such as e commerce server105 for integration into the merchant's store front. More than oneversion of a cart may be uploaded and provided to consumers. Carts maybe offered prefilled or empty for customer filling. Various genericscenes may be presented which customers might edit and customize totheir satisfaction.

At the location of the service the cart may be served to one or morecustomers on demand at step 412. The cart may be served, for example,after a user (customer) logs into the e-commerce server at step 413 andis prompted at step 414 to determine if the shopper is ready for ashopping cart. The cart may be served upon a positive response to theprompt. If a user does not want a shopping cart at the time of login,then the process from the perspective of the customer may skip to step415 “Other Business”.

After a cart is served at step 412, the user or customer may shop,adding items to and removing items from the shopping cart at step 416.In this step a customer may also edit, share and personalize the cart.In one embodiment, the shopping cart may be used at multiple separatestore fronts hosted in a same server or in different servers. A cartmight be emailed to a customer as an advertisement, such that when thecustomer clicks on the cart while connected to the Internet it opens oneor more store fronts or catalog pages from which the user may selectproducts. When the user is finished shopping, the user may, from withinthe cart, proceed to checkout. In one embodiment, if a user accepts allof the products offered in a cart that has been prefilled by a merchant,the user may click on the cart and immediately proceed to checkout.Expiration dates may be placed on items within a prefilled shopping cartsuch as in a weekend sale or some special time sensitive discount offer.

Back at step 405 if a merchant decides to access the design tool server,then at step 407 the merchant may log into the design tool server. Inthis branch of the process the merchant remains online and uses theserver tools to design one or more shopping cart views at step 408. Atstep 409, the merchant may provide the product images and may pre fillone or more collage views for a shopping cart utility as describedpreviously in the off line branch using the downloaded studio. At step411 online, the cart may be saved for service. The process from thecustomer perspective resulting in shopping cart service at step 412 isthe same.

One with skill in the art will understand that there may be more orfewer steps 400 provided in this example and in varying orders dependingon design and service rules. For example after a user logs in to ane-commerce site (typical customer registration), a user might not beprompted to access a shopping cart (step 414). Rather a cart mightautomatically appear when needed such as immediately after a user clickson “add to cart”. In another case a user may select a prefilled cartcontaining suggested products or an empty cart that the user may fill.

Provision of product images by merchants can be by utility of theservice of the invention where images are pre-submitted to the serviceand organized into some catalog format, or they may be held in a serverlocal to the merchant and served when required. Interactive merchantcatalogs may be integrated with the shopping cart utility as previouslydescribed in various ways having various looks.

FIG. 5 is a front view of a display 500 having interactive user controlsaccording to an embodiment of the present invention. Image 500represents a merchant-offered product that might be displayed as acatalog image. In this example, the image has a variety of controlsembedded into the image or into the image bounding box or border region502. The image is of a jacket 501 which is an irregularly shaped object.

A transparency control 507 is provided in this example and is adapted toenable a user to adjust the transparency in the border region using agraphic slider control. When a user mouses over control region 507, aninteractive slider graphic appears that can be manipulated using a mouseor by keystroke or cursor movement. The slider has a slider bar and arange from minimum transparency to maximum transparency. In oneembodiment, a similar control may be used to achieve a color hueadjustment for the border region, for example, adjusting the regioncolor to exactly match a background color thus achieving a transparenteffect for the border region in another way.

Border region 502 of image 500 also supports interactive links 505 and506 that point to other versions or looks for image 500. For example,control 500 may be invoked to view a folded version of jacket 501 andcontrol 506 may be invoked to view a hung version of jacket 501. In oneembodiment discussed further above, controls 505 and 506 are providedfor automatic system invocation when a user drags the image with thecontrols from the catalog into a pre-designed background scene for ashopping cart window. If a user drags the image near a decorative imagein the scene such as a table, link 505 may be invoked causing a foldedjacket 501 to appear on the table. When the user drags the image closerto a hangar, link 506 maybe invoked causing a hung version of the imageto appear.

Image 501 includes a zoom feature 504, which may also be a resizingcontrol with or without a zoom feature, anchored in the actual image atthe lower rightmost pixel region of the image. A method for finding sucha region in an image may be provided wherein a binary search isconducted in the background to locate the correct anchor position for amore reliable anchor of the zoom control/resizing control feature.Invocation of control 504 may cause a zoom button or resize buttongraphic to appear which a user may manipulate to gradually zoom in orzoom out the image or resize the image to a specific size. The zoomfeature of the control may also be adapted to zoom specified portions ofthe image such as an image label, artistic stitching, perceived flaw, orother features present in the image.

In one embodiment, images like image 500 including the controls arelimited to catalog or product list displays. A user browsing the catalogmay view several different views of an image; zoom in or zoom out on theimage; rotate the image; invert the image; adjust transparency of theimage; produce a mirror image; see the SKU of the product; and so on.The catalog image then may be fully enhanced for user interaction. Whena user selects to add the product to a shopping cart, a simplified imagecontaining fewer or no controls may be served into the shopping cart. Inanother embodiment all of the user interface controls present in thecatalog display may also be transferred with the image into the shoppingcart allowing full user interaction with the image while it is in thecart. Some controls may be reserved however, for catalog interactivity.

In one embodiment, an image representing a merchant product may be ananimated image like an executable picture animation. Likewise adecorative image in a collage background or backdrop might also be ananimated image. For example, a carrousel may be provided that can beused as an anchor on which to hang clothing items represented bymerchant product images. When activated by a user or some other trigger,the carrousel may spin with the hung clothing items rotating around thecarrousel. A product image like a dress, for example, can be animated tomimic a breeze blowing though a background scene that may be an openairy boutique. Other animation controls and effects may be provided forboth decorative images and product images.

In one embodiment, music may be piped into a shopping cart window in away that may enhance the customer mood or make the customer emotionallymore inclined to purchase items. Animations may also be provided as partof a background scene such as waves on a beach or trees swaying (out ofdoors scenery). At any time during the experience of a user, a shoppingcart may be converted into one that displays a text listing of productsthat are contained within the cart. Some product images may blend in sowell with the background image of a collage view of a shopping cart thata user might have some difficulty remembering that it is a product forpurchase and not a decorative image of the background. Therefore beingable to toggle between list and collage views is a valuable feature fromthe customer standpoint.

FIG. 6 is a process flow chart 600 illustrating steps for creating avisual container for representing two dimensional images as threedimensional images with automatic orientation and sizing. At step 601 auser opens the studio application or logs into and accesses design toolshosted in a Web-based server. At step 602, with the designer interfaceopen and the image transformation tool accessed, a user may import acandidate backdrop (BD) image.

At step 603, the user constructs polygonal geometries to establish oneor more view planes in perspective to illustrate depth. At step 604, theuser selects or defines scaling for the view plane longitudinal axis orgenerally from front to rear in the scene.

In one embodiment, at step 605, a user may define special imageplaceholders within a background image such as on decorative images andprops. These special placeholders might be used to call special productimage transformation according to the rules associated with theplaceholder. For example, a jacket may be defined by an imageplaceholder as a folded version of the jacket draped over a rail or theback of a chair for example. At step 606, a user may input a candidateproduct image for placement into the shopping cart. At step 607, thecandidate image is placed into a viewing or previewing window.

At step 608, the user may install one or more special images intospecial place holders over the background image. If at step 608 theimage is to be installed in a placeholder at step 609 the shopping carthas a placeholder inspired image view. The process may loop back to step606 for image input and may proceed accordingly.

At step 608, if the user decides not to install images in placeholders,the image may simply be dragged into the geometry at step 610. In thisstep a user may drag an image all over the background scene to view thedifferent ways to display the image in the collage view. At step 611 itis determined whether or not to release the image. If the image has notbeen released at step 611, then the process resolves back to step 610until the image is finally released. The released image in the mostsimplified example maybe immediately sized and positioned at step 612and the product image takes a place within the image collage. Theprocess may resolve back to 606 from step 612 for the next candidateimage that may be imported.

Special image placeholders may be anchored or embedded in a backgroundat logical points such as within or adjacent to decorative images offurniture or the like. The placeholders may contain universal resourceindicator (URI) data for locating specifically stated and configuredviews of catalog images like a folded view or the like. In oneembodiment, generic system-designed backdrop templates are offered bythe service for merchant or consumer interaction and final disposition.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating a single page shopping cartapplication 705 integrated with analytics software 703. Client/Serverarchitecture 700 is illustrated in this example and includes a usercomputer display 701 of a client computer networked to a server 702.Monitor 701 includes an interactive screen display of an integratedshopping cart application 705. In this example application 705 includesa shopping cart collage window 707 and a multiple merchant catalogresource 706.

In this example, merchants, having catalogued products represented byimages, include merchant 1 through merchant n or any number ofmerchants. Several images are already loaded into shopping cart window707 as previously described. Either those images were imported manuallyby the user or inserted as a system default.

Shopping cart 705 is implemented through a Web page on which server 702may monitor user activity and other parameters. As a user or multipleusers interact with cart 705, server 702 tracks their movements, pagenavigations, and data input into the server.

Web-based analytic software (SW) 703 runs on server 702 and provides thetracking features and data categories mined for statistics eventuallyused by the system to improve the service and add new features. SW 703may be able to determine brand preference in a shopping cart todetermine, for example, which brand does the cart carry most or at onetime. The tracking software can look for preference patterns for style.For an application using multiple merchant catalogs, SW 703 may be ableto determine if a preference for a particular merchant exists.

Other parameters that might be tracked and analyzed by server 702 aidedby SW 703 might include user behavior, user payment history, and numberof users having access to the shopping cart whether through permissionor other authorization. Still another parameter that may be tracked inthe case of a prefilled shopping cart presented to a user might be apercentage of users who actually accept the items in the cart withoutdeleting any of them.

As a user operates within cart 705, SW 703 aggregates server data aboutthat same interactive Web page according to the listed data categories.In one embodiment, this may be performed on behalf of a singleindividual or on behalf of multiple individuals. The data aggregated isconverted into useable page stats and server stats (if desired) and isstored in a portion of data repository 704 adapted for the purpose.Stats 704 may be retrieved at a later time and used to help refine thesystem and to make the user experience more rewarding. Web page analysisof shopping cart 705 may be an ongoing process conducted over multipleuses of the shopping cart, wherein patterns emerge over time thatindicate certain style preferences, product brand preferences etc. asdescribed further above. Some stats may be collected generally for allconsumers who use an instance of the shopping cart. Stats may also beanalyzed from page to page as a user shops multiple storefronts with thesame cart.

Having useable statistics regarding user preferences in brand and stylehelp merchants to decide on what items should be presented to users onsale or as a cross sell item or in general in a prefilled shopping cart.Cart acceptance figures can be calculated over many users over a periodof time. A merchant can experiment with product offerings to customersto try to improve the statistical average percentage of acceptance. Amore granular application of this process may be provided fordetermining what an average rejection rate is or average accepting ratefor any one item preplaced in a shopping cart over multiple users over aperiod of time. It will be apparent to one with skill in the art thatmany other statistical categories may be mined for data.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating merchant branding of a shoppingcart view 800 based on product content placed into the cart. View 800 isexemplary of a shopping cart collage relative to a shopping cart utilityshared by multiple merchants from the perspective of product sales. Aconsumer may select products offered by various participating merchantsand place those products into the cart space, which is a collage in thisexample.

Such a cart view may be portable and more than one consumer mayparticipate in loading the cart with merchandise. Consumers maycollaborate with each other and the view may be shared by email or othermethods such that any of the contents may be edited or removed and newproducts from the various merchants may be added to the cart.

Cart view 800 includes a branding area 802 that may carry a merchantbrand or skin. Branding area 802 surrounds a shopping cart collage space801 like a frame in this embodiment. There are multiple products 803that have been added to cart 801 including products sourced from threedifferent merchants. For example, three products in cart 801 areassociated with merchant A. Two products in cart 801 are associated withmerchant C. A single product in cart 801 is associated with merchant B.

In this example, branding area 802 may be dynamically changed from abrand representation of one merchant to a brand representation ofanother merchant based on some competitive state such as in the case ofthis example, the quantity of items in the cart that represent amerchant. In this case, merchant A is more heavily represented in cartspace 801. Therefore, merchant A commands the branding area of the cart.Representation may be based on number of items in the cart for eachmerchant or the total value of the items in the cart for each merchant,for example.

In this way, merchants compete with one another for the right to dressthe branding area of the shopping cart while it is being used. If thecart is distributed to more than one consumer, the branding area becomesan important tool to gain recognition for particular product brands ornames. The branding area skin or dressing can be dynamically changedwhenever the cart is activated and being used. A simple accounting ofmerchant items in the cart performed periodically or as products areadded and removed from the cart can trigger the selection process of theappropriate merchant skin from a pool of merchant skins. The switch mayoccur at any time that it is determined that a single merchant has moreitems in the cart or has a higher value of product in the cart. A tiebreaking routine can be added if two or more merchants have the samenumber of products in the cart.

In other embodiments where the cart might be shared by more than onemerchant, auctioning for brand space may be permitted. In still otherembodiments, a winning merchant might be permitted cross sell space aswell as the branding rights to the shopping cart. In one embodiment amerchant (agent) may order a real time “cart view” of a shared shoppingcart that is being edited by a user, wherein the view shows the agentonly the correct items of that merchant arranged in the cart forpurchase by the consumer. Such a view might be ordered through a toolbar option or browser plug-in.

FIG. 9 illustrates a shopping cart view 900 containing the likeness of auser modeling ensembles. Shopping cart view 900 includes the brandingarea 802 described above. In this case, merchant A has branding rightsto the cart.

In this example, instead of a simple collage view of multiple itemsarranged over a background image, a virtual shopping cart runway 901 isprovided as a background image where a consumer may upload a likeness ofherself for the purpose of actually modeling ensembles to see how theywill look before purchase. In this example, there are three ensemblesplaced into the cart by the consumer. These are represented in this viewas Mix A, Mix B, and Mix C. Although each ensemble is represented inblock form here for simplicity, they may include shoes, bags, clothingitems, jewelry, hats, belts, scarves, and so on.

A stage 1 (902 a) is provided for the consumer to model Mix A. Theconsumer image may be one that is a full body image that strikes a posewearing perhaps a covering over which the clothes may be superimposed.Information about the consumer can be used to resize objects and to makesure that all of the objects are orientated correctly forsuperimposition over the consumer anatomy. Therefore the systemrecognizes the consumer outline in the pose and the various anatomies ofthe user may be tagged to particular items. For example, the consumer'swrist may be tagged for a bracelet and the neckline for a necklace, etc.In this way when the consumer wants to add a bracelet, she may drag theimage close to the wrist and the bracelet assumes the correct placementand orientation.

While a fitted look likely may not be fully achieved, a general idea ofhow the consumer will look wearing various ensembles can be createdvirtually to a level of quality that the user may rely on when making apurchase. Stage 2 (902 b) illustrates a mirror image of the consumerimage at stage 1 wearing ensemble (Mix B). Stage 3 (902 c) illustratesthe same consumer image of stage 1 wearing ensemble (Mix C).

In one embodiment, the consumer may stage a likeness of herself and thenrequest that a merchant put together something that will look good onher. In another embodiment, the consumer may drag and drop items overher likeness and those items will install themselves to the correctimage anatomy overwriting items already in place. For example, changingshoes involves dragging a desired image of a pair of shoes into positionand releasing the image. The shoes align themselves over the consumerimage feet, overwriting or replacing any images already there. Usingtransparency and overlap enables the consumer to arrange for tucked-inlook or hang loose look relative to a blouse. Pant legs may be drapedover shoe tops. A necklace may be partially hidden by a shirt top etc.

The consumer may also have access to a center zoom function that isinstalled on the consumer image enabling the consumer to get an enlargedview of specific anatomy dressed by a particular item of an ensemble. Inone embodiment, frontal views, side views, and rear views of a consumermay be uploaded for modeling those specific views of the ensemble.Likewise, a three dimensional image of the consumer might be uploadedfor modeling clothing items that have three dimensional views. In thisway a consumer image like that on stage 1 (902 a) may be animated andexecutable to “turn”, for example, so the consumer gets an all aroundview of how an ensemble looks. A consumer image may also be uploaded forother purposes, such as decorative purposes for example. A user likenessmight be uploaded simply to communicate who loaded this cart similar toa profile shot of the consumer.

In one embodiment, a consumer may upload images of the likenesses ofpersons for whom the consumer may be shopping. Moreover, informationabout those persons may be input into the system to help with colorcoordination and size selection. In one embodiment images of mannequinsor busts maybe uploaded and fitted virtually with clothing items. Instill another embodiment, a merchant may license an image of one or morefamous models or personalities to use as available “virtual models” formodeling ensembles. There are a great many possibilities.

In one embodiment of the present invention a merchant may extend thebranding concept into the shopping cart space by utilizing a mechanismfor applying pre-designed captions or slogans over the image to mimic alifestyle print ad that may be viewed in a fashion magazine or the like.Such captions or slogans may contain word art and may be splashedartistically according to pre-design intent of the merchant. Items mayalso be captioned using the mechanism. A pool of available captions canbe maintained for use when a merchant first designs a cart for consumersto use. Captions and the like may also be adjusted for transparency soas not to obstruct the consumer view of items that are visuallyrepresented by images in the cart.

In one embodiment of the present invention, a shopping cart may also beused to return specific items to a storefront where they were purchasedto receive electronic credit or actual cash back through PayPal or someother payment system. This can be accomplished in a number of ways. Inone way, a snapshot of the shopping cart may be taken at the time ofcheckout along with a transaction record and stored for later reference.The snapshot or shopping cart image may also be stored by the consumerfor later use if necessary. After a user receives shipment anddetermines that one or more of the items were defective, never arrived,or for whatever reason should be returned, the user might click on thesnapshot thus activating the cart to return items.

The user may remove the items that are not to be returned, leaving theoriginal items that are to be returned for credit. The user may thenpresent the cart to a merchant version of a return counter and then mayproceed to return the items. The original accounting and records mayeasily be compared for determination of the proper return amounts. Theconsumer may be required to upload proof of postage that the actualitems are being returned to the merchant. In one embodiment there-activated shopping cart can be used by the consumer to returnunwanted items and to purchase new items in a same shopping session. Inone embodiment, electronic credits are given to a consumer returningitems but account balances are not adjusted until the items have beenphysically received by the merchant.

It will be apparent to one with skill in the art that the e-commerceservice and system of the invention may be provided using some or all ofthe mentioned features and components without departing from the spiritand scope of the present invention. It will also be apparent to theskilled artisan that the embodiments described above are specificexamples of a single broader invention which may have greater scope thanany of the singular descriptions taught. There may be many alterationsmade in the embodiments presented without departing from the spirit andscope of the present invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for for purchasing e-commerce items froma plurality of merchant hosted electronic data sources comprising thesteps: (a) providing a server client directly accessing two or more datasources, each data source hosted by a separate on-line merchant; (b)providing an information access and retrieval utility to run on theserver client; (c) navigating to and accessing the data sources hostedby two or more on-line merchants via the server client utility; (d)selecting product images depicting products for sale from individualones of the merchant-hosted data sources; (e) placing the product imagesin an integrated utility downloaded to the server client; (f) displayingthe product images in a shopping cart display; (g) displaying, in ornear the shopping cart display promotional indicia associated with oneof the merchants, decided by which merchant has the majority of productimages in the shopping cart display; and (h) transacting, with themerchants, purchase of products based upon presence in the integratedutility of the selected merchant product images.
 2. An integratedshopping facility executing in a web browser, comprising: an interactiveinterface enabling connection to individual ones of on-line merchantstores, and selection of items to consider for purchase from images ofproducts in the individual ones of the on-line merchant stores; anintegrated shopping cart into which the user is enabled to place anddisplay the images of the products selected; and coded instructionsassociated with the integrated shopping cart providing on-linecommunication between the integrated shopping cart and the individualones of the on-line merchants; wherein the user is enabled to select topurchase products displayed in the integrated shopping cart, andtransaction information is shared as a result between the integratedshopping cart and the online merchant associated with each item selectedfor purchase, and wherein promotional indicia associated with one of themerchants, decided by which merchant has a majority of product images inthe shopping cart display, is presented in or near the shopping cartdisplay.
 3. The integrated shopping facility of claim 2, wherein thepromotional indicia comprises one of more of a logo and promotional textregarding the on-line merchant decided by the majority of the productimages.
 4. The integrated shopping facility of claim 2 wherein, throughexecution of the coded instructions, upon selection of a product topurchase, the on-line merchant associated with the product selected, isinformed of an order for the product, to be shipped to and charged tothe user.
 5. The integrated shopping facility of claim 4 wherein paymentby the user for products is made to the integrated shopping facility,which manages payments to the on-line merchants.